DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0420
400
THE MAHERS OE FLORENCE.
Like Dante, too, Michael Angelo was of noble birth, a
fact which perhaps accounts in some degree for the marked
difference between him and the lowlier class of artists
already indicated. It was but a petite noblesse after all;
neither the poet nor painter came from any lofty house, or
was born in the purple; but yet no emperor was more un-
like a mediaeval peasant or craftsman than the artist who
boasted a surname and belonged to the Buonarotti was un-
like those who were of the soil, the son of John or Peter,
the apprentices of a Brunellesco, or a Botticello, picking
up a name in this quaint way. Cimabue, as we have
already remarked, is almost the only other in the long suc-
cession of Florentine painters who shares this distinction.
Scarcely one of them besides bears bis father’s name.
Giotto, Donatello, and the rest have nothing but those
given to them at their baptism to make glorious. Domen-
ico of the Garland maker and Andrea of the Tailor are still
more homely in their means of identification, and many
more wear a changed version of their master’s name, like
those quoted above (Brunelleschi from Brunellesco, Botti-
celli from Botticello), instead of the non-existing patro-
nymic ; while others are distinguished by locality, as Baccio
of the Gate, Pietro of Perugia, Paola of Verona. Michael
Angelo, however, was separated from the common herd by a
good round, mouth-filling set of syllables, and a legendary
descent from the counts of Canossa, a legend which the
great family was delighted to give its sanction to, when
the distant kinsman became a great man, courted by popes
and princes. It would be vain to say that he took any im-
portance from this fact. The much nearer and more im-
portant fact that he was himself Michael Angelo moved him
a great deal too much to leave room for any smaller pride
about the counts of Canossa ; but such was his actual con-
dition, and it is not without importance in his life and
character. He had hot knightly blood in his veins, little
THE MAHERS OE FLORENCE.
Like Dante, too, Michael Angelo was of noble birth, a
fact which perhaps accounts in some degree for the marked
difference between him and the lowlier class of artists
already indicated. It was but a petite noblesse after all;
neither the poet nor painter came from any lofty house, or
was born in the purple; but yet no emperor was more un-
like a mediaeval peasant or craftsman than the artist who
boasted a surname and belonged to the Buonarotti was un-
like those who were of the soil, the son of John or Peter,
the apprentices of a Brunellesco, or a Botticello, picking
up a name in this quaint way. Cimabue, as we have
already remarked, is almost the only other in the long suc-
cession of Florentine painters who shares this distinction.
Scarcely one of them besides bears bis father’s name.
Giotto, Donatello, and the rest have nothing but those
given to them at their baptism to make glorious. Domen-
ico of the Garland maker and Andrea of the Tailor are still
more homely in their means of identification, and many
more wear a changed version of their master’s name, like
those quoted above (Brunelleschi from Brunellesco, Botti-
celli from Botticello), instead of the non-existing patro-
nymic ; while others are distinguished by locality, as Baccio
of the Gate, Pietro of Perugia, Paola of Verona. Michael
Angelo, however, was separated from the common herd by a
good round, mouth-filling set of syllables, and a legendary
descent from the counts of Canossa, a legend which the
great family was delighted to give its sanction to, when
the distant kinsman became a great man, courted by popes
and princes. It would be vain to say that he took any im-
portance from this fact. The much nearer and more im-
portant fact that he was himself Michael Angelo moved him
a great deal too much to leave room for any smaller pride
about the counts of Canossa ; but such was his actual con-
dition, and it is not without importance in his life and
character. He had hot knightly blood in his veins, little